Ayn Rand’s view of Robin Hood differs a bit from Bill Nighy’s

    When I heard Bill Nighy supporting the so-called Robin Hood plan to rob the rich and give to the poor, (otherwise known as the Tobin tax and supported by G. Brown) I delved into my well-thumbed copy of the novel Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, because of her memorable put down of this truly daft idea.

I wasn’t disappointed. This is the book’s hero Danneskjoeld.

“(Robin Hood) is remembered …….. as a champion of need, not as a defender of the robbed, but as a provider of the poor. He is held to be the first man who assumed a halo of virtue by practicing charity with wealth which he did not own, by giving away goods which he had not produced, by making others pay for the luxury of his pity. He is the man who became the symbol of the idea that need, not achievement, is the source of rights, that we don’t have to produce, only to want, that the earned does not belong to us, but the unearned does. He became a justification for every mediocrity who, unable to make his own living, has demanded the power to dispose of the property of his betters, by proclaiming his willingness to devote his life to his inferiors at the price of robbing his superiors.”

“Until men learn that of all human symbols, Robin Hood is the most immoral and the most contemptible, there will no justice on earth and no way for mankind to survive”

If you don’t buy that rather harsh view, surely we will all agree that raising kerzillions for the poor of Africa etc in this way, will only result in an increased flow of money into Swiss bank accounts, Paris shopping boutiques and Mercedes S class showrooms. Africans need proper governance, not more charity.